Army composition/balance in XGM

[Elvis]

Hi everyone

I recently dusted of Rome and got drawn in again. Played a campaign as romans in vanilla, had a lot of fun.
Now i want do do another campaign, maybe with XGM. It looks very well made and i really like the greek factions.

Possibly as macedon, because i want to play with Phalanx and Cavalry. I'm a bit fed up with roman-style heavy infantry, after playing as (pre-marian) romans for so long.
In theory, XGM seems like the mod of choice for playing a hellenic campaign, with the added depth for the greeks.
But when looking at AARs and screenshots of XGM, it seems like most people playing hellenic factions use no cavalry at all. And even if they do, its a handfull of router-chasers. Instead, there are tons of heavy infantry on the field, with a bit of phalanx to hold the line...

Which means that this is probably the most effective way of playing. But that is not the style i had hoped for. So will i cripple my armies if i play with more cavalry and less heavy infantry as macedon?
Yes, it might not be all that historically accurate, but i don't mind that if it raises the fun.
What i do mind is playing with what i think of macedons strenghts (Cav and pike) and getting defeated because i should have brought the heavy infantry-with-javelins like the romans do....

[edit:] Are those concerns valid? Maybe for macedon, but not another successor faction maybe? Or should i stick with vanilla and save XGM for another day?

Many thanks in advance.

[yiplong]

The Greek cavalry pales in comparison to the barbarian ones, plus they are extremely expensive to maintain. I think it's ill advised to have an army with too many cavalry units.
That being said, there is nothing particularly wrong with using more cavalry if that's what you want.

[DimeBagHo]

Macedonian cavalry are quite good, and you will find that a Hammer (cavalry) and Anvil (phalanx) approach works quite well against most opponents. But, as yiplong says, cavalry is expensive so don't go overboard with it. If you play with 2hp you will also have to get used to wearing down the enemy a bit before charging with you cavalry, and using repeated charges to break them.

[Tim Minchin fan]

I find that as macedon, 1 general, 2 archers, 2 light cav, 4 thorakitai and 10 phalangites + 1 peltast/seige is good!